Beauty's Beast - By Jenna Kernan Page 0,23
it his bed?
She startled up and back, hitting her head on the wooden headboard.
“Are you trying to scare me to death?”
“I just have that effect on people.”
“I’m not people.”
“Right.” He lifted a mug. “Coffee?”
She extended her hand in acceptance, using the other to cover herself. She had fashioned her cloak into a cotton shift on the chance that something like this might happen, but it was short and sleeveless and Alon had a way of making her feel exposed even when she was fully dressed.
Alon backed away and Samantha took a sip. The coffee was black and sweet.
“How did you know I take sugar?” she asked.
“I could smell it in the mug you used downstairs.”
“I washed that mug.”
He shrugged. He was more handsome today than she remembered. The dove-gray shirt and darker gray trousers made his eyes seem bluer than she recalled.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Only a moment, unfortunately.”
She drew up her knees and used both hands to embrace the mug. Should she order him out or ask him to sit?
“You should have knocked.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s impolite to enter a woman’s room without permission.”
“It’s my room and you are not a woman.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But I am still your guest. Or am I a prisoner?”
“I have no hold on you. I only try to keep you safe out of respect for my mother. But you interfere with my work.”
She leaned back against the headboard, took another sip of coffee and then cradled the mug between her hands.
“But you’d rather be left alone?”
“Yes. It would have been better for me and for you if the Great Birds had not carried you to me.”
On that, at least, they agreed.
“How did you disappear like that last night?”
“My second form is a kind of vapor that resembles smoke or mist.”
He could turn into smoke? “Is that how you caught me in the forest?”
“Yes, but I could have run you down.”
“You said second form. How many do you have?”
“Three. The one that you saw at your home, the vapor and this.” He waved a hand over the front of his body. “Our final form.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced toward the balcony as if planning his escape.
“I heard from my mother,” she said.
“Is she well?”
“Yes.”
“But you have not heard from your father, the great bear. And so you are worried.” Alon looked away.
She knew what he thought. But he was wrong. Her dad wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.
“When can we go find Bess?”
“Perhaps tomorrow.”
She slammed the mug on the side table, threw back the covers and slipped from the bed. Only when she noted him staring at her legs did she remember she was not well dressed for a fight. Or perhaps she was perfectly dressed. He was obviously distracted.
“I can’t sit around the house doing nothing.”
“I have already written to my mother of your arrival. She has yet to reply.”
“Tell me which way she went and I’ll find her myself.”
“Much as I would like that, I must bring you.”
Had she really almost kissed him last night? She couldn’t believe her own stupidity. Frustration seethed within her and she lashed out.
“My dad needs help. He wants your mother to join us. I need to bring her his words.”
His voice fairly dripped with scorn. “Why would she join you?”
She lost it. “Because she’s a Skinwalker and because the Toe Taggers attacked my dad!”
At the phrase Toe Tagger, Alon’s face went stormy. He glared at her with such loathing that she drew up short. An instant later she recognized what she had said, and regret pooled in her belly. “I’m sorry, Alon.”
He headed for the door and she followed, matching his quick stride. “I forgot, Alon. I said I was sorry.”
He spun on the stairs. The muscles of his jaw bunched and his mouth tipped down at both corners, and still he was the handsomest man she had ever seen.
When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “Don’t forget. Don’t ever forget for a second what I am.”
He continued down the stairs at a lope.
“Alon, don’t you dare leave me here again.”
But he was already in the foyer and out the door.
Fine. The Thunderbirds might have dropped her here, but that didn’t mean she had to stay. Nicholas Chien was not the only one who knew how to track someone.
* * *
Samantha followed the long driveway that wound through the woods. She only had to find civilization to access her accounts and get the money needed to go anywhere she pleased. She’d